“I think we ought to recognize this entire fiscal cliff is an artificial invention of Washington, created by people in the Congress and the presidency,” the former House speaker said Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”

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PHOTOS: Fiscal cliff's key players

He said that instead of battling over a massive reform deal, fiscal problems could be tackled incrementally.

“It can be broken down by them into a series of steps that can be taken without having to be rushed into one gigantic, last-minute, little-understood, with no hearings, one vote up or down [package],” Gingrich said. “I think it’s a terrible way to govern the United States.”

He also blasted the rhetoric surrounding the fiscal cliff.

“I think this whole fiscal cliff language is designed to maximize a sense of fear that’s nonsense,” Gingrich said. “The very same people, the Congress and the president, who invented the fiscal cliff — this is all an invention — could break it down into 12 foothills, or 15 foothills or 20 foothills. They could tackle one problem at the time.”

Gingrich called for transparency in the fiscal negotiations and downplayed the threat posed by the impending cliff.

“This ought to be out in the open,” the former presidential candidate said. “We’re rushing towards a secret deal made in secret meetings where nobody will know what’s going on, and then people will be told, ‘Boy, if you don’t vote for this, we’ll go over the cliff.’ Well, I think there are a lot worse things than going over a man-made cliff that I think is entirely artificial.”

Tea Party, we need you know. Newt is so right. The Fiscal Cliff is an Obama public relations invention, an excuse to load trillions more of so called stimulus on the economy. We call it crony capitalism, Solyndra, a way to reward his high roller contributors. Tea Party, reject it. Force Obama over the cliff and all his phony doomsayers.

To point yes but the POSTUS is always going to be a consideration in legislation. Frankly I think Obama should have told the GOP House to shut up and pass a clean debt ceiling bill. and if they kept refusing he should have just instructed the Treasury to continue paying our debts under the authority of Article 4 Section I of the Constitution which states that the full faith and credit of the United States should not be questioned.

The real issue is the tone in Washington makes even stupidly simple things impossible to do. Read the S&P report on why the downgraded us. It had very little to do with actual debt. Most of the problem they saw was if our government had so much trouble passing a bill that is like the legislative equivalent of changing your underwear once a week it looked impossible for anything significant to ever get done even if it was an emergency, and it's true. Like we couldn't even get a farm relief bill through congress this year with one o the worst droughts on record going on.